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Data retenton, data processing and the Transhuman experience

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Thu, 2013-07-18 07:12

BOMherren

Data retenton, data processing and the Transhuman experience

I read something that a user by the name of Divine Wrath brought up as a tangent to another topic, and it got me thinking.

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DivineWrath wrote:
Not too long ago, if I recall correctly, a thread on these forums went a little off-topic and ended up discussing cognitive enhancing tools. It was argued that things like Google, Wikipedia, and cell phones really change the way we think, and not having them can leave us in awkward positions. Those who lived without such technologies at some point in th, their lives might be able to switch back to the old ways (though they probably would not be happy about it), but those who lived without such technologies might be confused as to what to do if they suddenly deprived of their known way of life. It could be considered the equivalent of someone accustomed to going to stores to buy food, but then learning they must now grow and hunt their own food. They are not likely to do well at first... and it would likely take time and energy from doing things they are good at.

If your cognitive processes are so seamlessly integrated with services like Google, Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, TVTropes and IMDB that you can access them fluidly, at the speed of thought, then what does "memory" and "data retention" even mean anymore? In every meaningful sense I can fathom, your cognitive faculties must then be said to encompass the vast majority of all human knowledge. Add to that a service like YouTube XP. You're now something out of Platonic or Buddhist mythology - a being that has experienced everything there is in the world, seen and done and known everything. Add in Simspace versions of Facebook and Twitter, maybe with a dash of Second Life thrown in for good measure. What would you be like, if you had this? Could you even tell what's in meatspace and what's in simspace anymore? What's happened to you and what's happened to other people? Would you be able to focus on any task ever again, with all these stimuli hooked directly to your brain? What does "real" even mean, when the adventures of Captain Jack the Reclaimer feel as real to every cognitive faculty in your brain as did your breakfast this morning, only infinitely more vibrant and interesting? I used to think that mesh inserts would be a mere convenience, letting you look things up on Wikipedia in record time and helping you keep track of your friends and your favorite entertainers, and that Knowledge skills were generally a bad investment for a character. But maybe it's more than that. Maybe it will completely change the structure and challenges of the human mind and the human experience. Maybe retention (or memory) is a completely meaningless concept, and the real limitations are 1) raw data processing power and 2) the ability to focus your attention and not be distracted by all the stimuli being constantly fed to your brain. I now believe that a regular human mind dropped into 10 AF and given mesh inserts, would be the equivalent of what we today would consider severely autistic. Unable to focus on anything, or to sift through the immense amounts of data flowing into her brain. Her meatspace body listless until her Muse prods and guides her into action. That is, unless she shields herself off, accessing the mesh through an interface which has delay and some completely arbitrarily imposed restrictions on what kind of data can be fed to her brain - which comes with severe social consequences, as it renders her significantly less able to participate in Transhuman society. Unless your character is a bioconservative, or just kind of slow, Knowledge skills aren't just a poor investment. They're completely meaningless. Every piece of knowledge your character can realistically use during his entire lifetime can be saved on a thumb drive. Only, that thumb drive literally becomes a part of your brain, and can be accessed at the speed of thought. I've heard words like these expressed years ago, but the ideas didn't click for me until just now. It's quite a ride, I assure you. Does anyone else have any insight to share, on how Transhuman minds might be different? Has anyone thought about how you would try to play a character like this realistically?

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Thu, 2013-07-18 08:26

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Playing devils advocate I'd

Playing devils advocate I'd have to say; Having access to wikipedia and youtube isn't a skill. That access doesn't replace any skills. It doesn't matter how convenient and integrated that access might be; access to data does not grant the benefit of comprehension or context in a way that allows a person to leverage the power of the information. But the flipside; I can't imagine having such easy access to the data and not ending up with some level of actual skill simply through "osmosis". I am, unfortunately, old enough to remember walking to the library to look at an encyclopedia when I needed to know something. I also have, (and occasionally use), my dad's copy of [u]Minor and Seastone's Handbook of Engineering Materials[/u] from 1964. Because of those experiences I have a great respect for easy access to data provided by the internet. The examples of 'skill replacing utility' in the OP both make me smile and scare me. Google, Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, youtube, TV tropes, IMDB, Facebook, Twiter, Secondlife (Does anyone spend any time on secondlife anymore?) Excepting dictionary.com; taken in aggregate, all of the 'sources' listed are 99.9% poor entertainment with Zero actual utility. Seriously, which skill do TV Tropes and Facebook replace? The terrifying thing is that Wikipedia seems to be held as an example of high-utility free information--when it's absolutely no replacement for an actual educational text like Minor and Seastone--and Facebook and IMDB are held up right beside it. If anything the internet seems to be making us dumber. So, Yea for mesh inserts, hopefully in the future we can be force fed all the useless distraction on facebook and youtube even Faster! I look forward to watching the WoW/Facebook generation give birth to the Fart-in-the-Wind generation so humanity can make it's failure to leverage free and easy access to data even more Epic. Pff. Skils. I don't needs no skils I gots Goolge!

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Thu, 2013-07-18 08:39

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

Couple of points:

Couple of points: 1. Knowledge skills are useful if you're for some reason cut off from the datasphere. 2. Doing research still takes a quick action. This becomes crucial in situations where a quick response based on knowledge is important (e.g., during a conversation, making a snap decision in combat based on expectations of enemy behavior gained from knowledge skills, etc.). 3. The capacity to filter massive amounts of info that you're talking about is partly reflected by the Research skill, but also partly by knowledge skills. Instant access to all human knowledge doesn't come with the ability to correctly interpret what you just looked up. Academics skills, for example, partly reflect the training needed to think critically about knowledge in that field (is this physics theory I'm reading sensible, or the work of a crackpot?). Interest skills give you the social context needed to decide which facts are useful and which are rumors, viral marketing campaigns, etc. Language skills give you true fluency and eliminate mistakes (the problem with translation software now is in part that it can't read your mind to know what sense of a word you really intended -- and this problem hasn't been solved in the EP universe).

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J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth! http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham

Thu, 2013-07-18 15:11

bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture

I'll chime in here and agree-

I'll chime in here and agree--the ability to access knowledge is different than the ability to comprehend it. Education--real education, not the regurgitation of facts that's in vogue with the politicos these days--involves teaching students critical thinking skills, the ability to analyze and the capability to put a new thing into a known context by means of intellectual synthesis. Basically, you can regurgitate the information from Wikipedia or TVTropes or whathaveyou all you want, but it's just words without a framework to put them in. Or, in other words, head to Wikipedia right now and find one of those advanced science pages with all of the mathematical formulae or other really advanced topic. Most people will just look at the mass of words and be unable to comprehend them, even if they can recite them off the page; imagine someone reading [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscopic_quantum_phenomena]this[/url] aloud, and then being asked "Okay, but what does that mean?" "I have no idea." But someone that is educated in that topic will be able to understand it, fit the knowledge into their existing personal knowledge base, and (hopefully) be able to explain it by rephrasing it in context. And acquiring that sort of skill takes time and training.

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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

Thu, 2013-07-18 22:32

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Ok now I'm going to play the

Ok now I'm going to play the opposite of devil's advocate... which I suppose would have to be god's critic... actually that's one of my fave pastimes. Cause he's a duche. Anyhow... My point is: [b]Eidedic Memory[/b] Bioware, Cost: Low. If there's any piece of gear that can make a transhuman character impossible for a merehuman to portray in the way that the OP suggests; it's the combination of eidetic memory with mesh inserts. Combine that with multitasking, forking, multiple Muses, the mind Boggles. (what is the plural of muse? I'm sure I knew that once.) You still need knowledge skills to actually use the data but thats why Jebus made skillsofts right?

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Fri, 2013-07-19 12:20

Madwand

Indeed. Having instant access

Indeed. Having instant access to Wikipedia, Google et all does almost nothing to make you smarter. Having instant access to a library of Skillsofts -- typically open-source or pirated -- absolutely *does* make you smarter, and makes resources available on the Mesh that much more valuable. It's skillsofts that make the difference the OP is talking about in the transhuman age.

Sat, 2013-07-20 00:47

EtherExsurgent EtherExsurgent's picture

Eidedic Memory only as good as its source

How many times have you had conversations with people who only have information on a subject from internet sources and second hand sources and you realize the person's conclusions about the subject are incorrect. Just because a character can remember everything and has instant access to the mesh doesn't mean it will help. Add in how much data was lost or corrupted doing the fall and you can use the Mesh against your players.

Sun, 2013-07-21 06:50

Lorsa